Blockstream’s Bitcoin Sidechain, ‘Liquid Network,’ Goes Live

Blockstream on Wednesday announced that Liquid Network — its first Bitcoin sidechain — is now online. This announcement comes after more than a year of beta testing the sidechain on the core Bitcoin network.

Liquid Network Goes Live

The San Francisco-based Blockstream announced the news via a blog post on the startup’s website. According to the company, Liquid ensures speedy and secure transactions suited to the specific needs of high trading volume entities like brokers, exchange platforms, and financial institutions.

The @Blockstream team is excited to announce the #LiquidNetwork is now live with 23 members! Liquid enables fast, secure, and confidential transactions, along with digital asset issuance on the world's first production #Bitcoin #sidechain. 🔒⛓️🌊 https://t.co/hWkU2bd1ku pic.twitter.com/IBvDIoHCsS

— Blockstream (@Blockstream) October 10, 2018

Blockstream revealed that the Liquid sidechain went live at the end of September 2018. The company also said that there are already 23 participants on the Liquid Network, all of whom are major stakeholders in the Bitcoin market.

Blockstream first announced Liquid in 2015. The network works by participants first converting Bitcoin to Liquid Bitcoin (LBTC). Each LBTC is tied to actual Bitcoins, but instead of running on the main network, LBTC is moved within the secure Liquid Network sidechain. Thus, transactions can occur at a faster rate inside the Liquid Network sidechain.

Apart from enabling faster transactions, Blockstream is also pursuing a raft of other expanded upgrades and enhancements to the Liquid Network. According to the blog post, the company plans to include features such as third-party wallet support for Trezor and Ledger hardware wallets, a GreenAddress wallet and an open-source wallet client.

Liquid Network – Not an Actual Bitcoin Sidechain

While Blockstream touts Liquid Network as a sidechain, it functions less like an actual sidechain and more like a mashup between Green Addresses and Multisig Permissioned Blockchain. Technically, a sidechain is a blockchain that has a two-way pegged currency and can validate the data contained in other blockchains.

Last year, Blockstream released an updated white paper for the Liquid Network which introduced “Federated Pegs,” a somewhat pseudo-decentralized facsimile of a two-way peg system. So, while not an actual Bitcoin sidechain, the company still believes that the Liquid Network can render altcoins obsolete.

The announcement blog post also reiterated the desire to cause a paradigm shift in the digital asset issuance space. Earlier in the year, the company released an explainer video showing how users could tokenize anything on the Liquid Network.

Will Bitcoin sidechains like Liquid Network make altcoins obsolete? Let us know your thoughts in the comment section below.